


See How The Sun Shines Brightly

by anistarrose



Series: Some Sunny Day and Extras [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: (but overall I promise it'll be lighter than its predecessor lol), Gen, Same Coin Theory (Gravity Falls), Stangst, warnings may update
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2020-08-23 04:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20236657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anistarrose/pseuds/anistarrose
Summary: Some deleted/alternate scenes, some prequels/sequels, and other extra bits and pieces to go along with Some Sunny Day.





	1. Symbols

**Author's Note:**

> Starting off the bonus content with a prequel! There’s a wide variety of stuff to come, with varying relations to the original fic, but this one is canon to the story told in SSD.
> 
> (Fic title is from Mr. Blue Sky by ELO!)

When he can’t remember their names, it’s the symbols that stand out.

The bright, energetic girl placing the fez upon his head is unfamiliar, as is the name she calls him. He doesn’t have the faintest idea why her brilliant smile fades as he asks her who she is, but deep down, he knows that the Shooting Star on her sweater is no coincidence.

She’s pulled away from him by a boy with a Pine Tree on his cap. There’s a sense of duality between the two, between the quieter nervous energy and the unrestrained, unashamed creativity and chaos —

Or at least, he has an uncanny feeling that there _should_ be, but right now they’re both on the verge of tears about something, and he can’t for the life of him figure out what. 

There’s an older man talking to him now, calling him a hero, but it feels distant. He doesn’t feel heroic — he feels confused. He keeps making people cry, and he doesn’t know how to stop it.

His gloves have six fingers, he realizes, which is odd because he’s _pretty_ sure that’s one too many…

But then the man hugs him, and he feels a six-fingered hand on his back. 

He’s not sure what to think, especially not as he feels something wet on his shoulder. He kind of wants to say something, but he doesn’t know _what_ — doesn’t know how to address this strange man.

(Strange yet _familiar_, as one tends to become when the bonds of self-selected destiny connect two souls across lifetimes.)

He nearly calls the man “Sixer,” but something makes him hesitate. The name feels… not _wrong_, really. If anything, it feels _right_, righter than anything else that’s popped into his head so far…

It feels _charged_. It has a whole heap of emotions behind it, none of them explicable and most of them conflicting. There are faint ghosts of memories floating on the tip of his tongue — trying to convince him the nickname will feel best when paired with a mocking laugh, or when spat like a curse…

And there are other instincts, stronger instincts, telling him to speak it casually, or even better, with a reassuring tone…

But all those recollections and instincts are background at best, straddling the border between conscious and subconscious. When he tries to think about them, they fade away.

Finally, he blurts out: “I think I’m wearing your gloves?”

Sixer withdraws from the embrace, and for some reason it feels disappointing.

“Yes,” Sixer replies, expression strangely hopeful. “You are…”

“Why?”

He can see the hope drain out of Sixer’s face, and it both perplexes him and _destroys_ him.

“Let’s switch outfits,” Sixer says, speaking like every word is a chore for him to choose. “Maybe… it’ll help you feel better, Stanley. More like yourself.”

It doesn’t. He doesn’t feel any more like “Stanley.” Of course, he doesn’t know what being “Stanley” is supposed to feel like, but he’s pretty sure that it isn’t like being torn apart at his core. Like there’s two minds inside his head, and no matter how much stronger one of them is, their hatred for each other still burns bright and violent like exchanged blows from flames and fists.

After the outfit switch, as they begin to walk through the woods, he finds himself clinging to the symbols like a lifeline. Pine Tree, Shooting Star, and Sixer most of all — for some reason, they’ve been seared into his mind too completely to be erased like everything else.

He’s _literally_ clinging to Sixer’s arm, too. His feet tremble beneath him and every few steps, he feels like he’s going to lose his balance, but Sixer is always there to guide him over tree roots and through uneven terrain.

A much younger man joins them, one with a Question Mark t-shirt. Initially, his eyes are bright with relief, but after the exchange of a few words that Stanley doesn’t entirely process — one of them “erase,” another “saved” — tears begin to run down Question Mark’s cheeks.

It only gets worse as Stanley’s companions lead him into a wreck of a building and sits him down in a dusty chair, where Shooting Star jumps into his lap and starts reading from a scrapbook. Everyone crowds around them, watching with hopeful, desperate, _pleading_ eyes.

Though he tries not to show it, at first he just wants to disappear, to melt into the back of the chair and fade away because he doesn’t want to see their faces when he lets them down — but suddenly, he feels a familiar frustration for a familiar pig, and every abruptly changes for the better.

He remembers names, and he stops thinking about the symbols. For a while.

***

“Was it Mom taking this video, or Shermie?” Stan asks. His eyes are glued to the wall, onto which the projector beams familiar childhood memories.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t actually remember in this case,” Ford admits. “It was around this point that she finally started trusting Shermie with the camera, so it could be either.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right.” Stan snickers as he watches younger versions of him and Ford punch each other in the shoulders. “Hey, Sixer, can you pass the popcorn? I —”

His mouth snaps shut as he realizes what he’s said, and the fog of panic and disjointed memories fills his brain. He’s _sure_ that he’s uttered something forbidden, that he’s somehow exposed some deep, dark secret that he doesn’t himself remember —

“Stanley?” Ford asks. His eyes are still fixed on the video, but Stan can tell from the unsteadiness of his voice that he’s upset. “What did you just say?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I blurted that out —”

“What do you mean, _sorry_?” Ford turns around, and puts a hand on Stan’s shoulder. “I was afraid that you weren’t _ever_ going to remember that nickname…”

“I… I thought you didn’t like that nickname.”

Ford blinks, and in the dim light, Stan finally realizes that his eyes are damp. “I missed that nickname more than almost anything in the world, Stan.”

Stan forces a smile, and at some point in the process, it transforms into something genuine. “I’ll keep that in mind then, Sixer.”

The nickname feels a lot better when he says it this time, but he still can’t shake the feeling that there’s something he’s forgetting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, comments are appreciated as always! 
> 
> I actually wrote the first draft of the first half of this chapter months before I finished SSD, and I figured it was about time I polished it up to post. I have another deleted scene ready that should come before the end of the summer, but I can't make any promises about the update schedule beyond that.
> 
> [(also on tumblr)](https://anistarrose.tumblr.com/post/186990375571/some-sunny-day-bonus-chapter-1-symbols)


	2. Time Crimes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan is accused of time travel crimes he doesn’t remember committing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something of an alternate prologue to SSD, set a few months before the events the fic.
> 
> (Sorry for the long break, by the way! I wrote this a while ago, but kept getting distracted first by other projects, and then later by college.)

Stan and Ford were walking away from a local diner, back to the pier where their boat was docked, when the Time Police officers showed up.

“This is the Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron! Put your hands where I can see them!” their apparent leader shouted, brandishing a massive laser gun. Her eyes were covered by an intimidating black visor dotted with blinking green lights, and Ford didn’t doubt that she could shoot lasers out of it too if needed.

Slowly, he raised his hands in the air, and begrudgingly, Stan did the same.

“Which one of you is Stanford Pines, and which is Stanley Pines?” the leader barked.

“Depends on which one of them is in trouble,” Stan replied without missing a beat. A few of the time cops snickered. 

“You’re both in trouble, but Stanley is in a whole lot more,” the lead officer replied.

“I’m Ford, then,” Stan answered. Ford groaned.

“You know, I can’t quite put my finger on why, but I somehow doubt that,” the officer told them. “In any case, Stanford Pines — whichever one of you he may be — has been charged with one count of assisting the perpetuation of an unregistered stable time loop. That refers to one time loop, mind you, not the number of actions taken to perpetuate it — but it’s still a third-degree time felony, so you’d best be calling your time lawyer!”

Stan gave Ford an accusatory glare. Ford, genuinely clueless, responded with a shrug.

“And _Stanley_,” the officer went on, “oh Stanley, Stanley, Stanley. Where do I even start?”

As Stan squirmed uncomfortably, she pulled out a sleek black tablet and began to rattle off:

“Time traveling without a permit. Failing to disclose yourself as a time traveler to TPAES officers you interacted with. Actively participating in an unregistered stable time loop spanning multiple decades. One count of causing indirect but intentional harm to your past self, two counts of causing direct harm to a past self or selves, leaving you with a grand total of _six time crimes_, three of which are first-degree time felonies!”

“Stanley, what the _fuck_?!” Ford blurted out, grabbing Stan by the shoulders. “I can barely even imagine accomplishing half of this if I _tried_!”

“I don’t know what she’s talking about!” Stan replied. “Time crime is, like, the only type of crime I _haven’t_ done! You’ve gotta believe me!”

Ford turned back to the officers. “Would you at least give us some details about when and how we allegedly committed these crimes? Do you know if we’ve actually committed them yet, for one thing?”

“No can do,” the lead officer told him. “Details are redacted.”

“_All_ of them?”

“All of them.” 

One of the lower-ranking officers whistled. 

“You don’t see with just any case,” the leader explained, “so needless to say, you two have really gotten yourself in some deep time shit.”

“Well, that’s some _bullshit_,” Ford declared. “How do you know you’re not creating a paradox yourself, by throwing us in prison before we can actually do the things you want to arrest us for?”

“You can take it up with Time Baby if you want. My job is just to bring you to time trial — and speaking of which, are you going to come peacefully, or will I have to restrain you?”

Stan elbowed Ford. “These are the same time cops who have the gladiatorial combat for freedom thing, right?” he whispered. “Do you think we could just go along for now, and then win at that later?”

“Probably,” Ford whispered back. “But I’m still trying to figure out what we even _did_, and why —”

He was interrupted by the lead officer’s tablet as it let out a high-pitched _ping_, the screen illuminating and bathing the officer’s face in soft pink light.

_Stanley and Stanford Pines have henceforth and hencebackwards been pardoned for all time crimes past, present, future, and outside of time itself,_ the tablet announced in a lilting voice. _Please direct all your inquiries to the time and space between time and space, and thank you for your quick correction of any charges placed against the two._

“This — I’ve _never_ seen this happen before!” the officer stammered, holding her tablet at an arm’s length. “Who the hell _are_ you two?”

“We’re Stan and Ford Pines,” Stan replied. “You seemed like you had that down before — what gives?”

The officer passed on the tablet to a nervous-looking subordinate, and retrieved a time tape from her belt.

“If you earned a pardon from a force above Time Baby himself,” she said, “then that can’t be _all_ you are.”

“Wait, what force?” Ford asked. “Who pardoned us?”

But the squadron of time cops had already disappeared, whisked off to who-knows-what century.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, comments are appreciated as always! I’ve kind of been waffling back and forth regarding how canon I want to consider this scene, since I think it would raise Ford’s suspicions much more than they were raised at the beginning of SSD, so to speak — but it’s still very funny to me, and I wanted to put it out there in the world.
> 
> If you’re a fan of my Same Coin Theory stuff, you may also be interested in:  
-[These headcanons I wrote up](https://anistarrose.tumblr.com/post/187886521616/some-same-coin-theory-headcanons), about how Stan knows things he shouldn’t  
-[This one-shot from earlier this month!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20653508) It doesn’t have to be interpreted as Same Coin, but it is Stan and Axolotl-centric, and I think it meshes pretty well with the Axolotl’s role in SSD.


	3. Seen and Unseen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A grove of birch trees on a familiar hill, an encounter in the woods that goes terribly wrong, and two memory guns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been a while, huh? I was planning to celebrate the anniversary of finishing this fic with two bonus chapters just stuffed chock full of hurt/comfort, but then life happened (I got a part-time job and also mild insomnia, you know how it is) so enjoy some prequel angst instead! This one is canon to SSD and set in early 1982, shortly after the portal incident.

After a scare with frostbite in late February, Stan sets out at the first sign of melting snow to resume his search for the journals. A snowdrift had blocked several trails behind the house last week, but now they’re passable — so long as you don’t mind the overcast weather, and being up to your heels in mud.

Stan had enjoyed hunting for fake treasure and following Ford’s cryptic clues when they would pretend to be adventurers as kids — he’d been _good_ at it, even. But this time, Ford has left him no hand-drawn treasure maps or whimsical riddles — only more ominous clues, like a ransacked, now empty medicine cabinet, or a ripped out journal page about being watched with X-ed out triangles drawn in all the margins. Clues that make Stan feel like throwing up, because they _should_ mean something to him, but he just can’t bring himself to think it through and face the inevitable conclusion. 

_ <strike>This is all my fault.</strike> _

He stumbles to a halt at the foot of a hill, and realizes he’s surrounded by birch trees. He’s surrounded by eyes that never blink — _or maybe,_ he thinks, before he can tell himself he’s going crazy, _eyes that only blink when I’m blinking._

The birch trees don’t scare him the way the rest of the forest does — he’s not afraid of some creature or cryptid sneaking up on him here, where the forest is so deathly silent and he’s left all alone with himself. They don’t scare him the way the town does, either — despite everything, he feels _less_ watched here, where there are no strangers shooting him suspicious glares or cloaked figures vanishing around corners and into the shadows.

No, the birch trees set Stan on edge because whenever he sees them — makes eye contact with them? — he _knows _he’s forgetting something. It’s something important, something horrible, something dangerous — like the fear of having left the stove on, except multiplied by a million. Disaster is impending, and he’s the one to blame.

_ <strike>This is where I belong.</strike> _

He hates this place, but he’s come this far, so he can’t leave without giving the eerie birch grove a proper search. He doubts that Ford, at the height of his paranoia, would hide a journal on a hill where even the trees could watch him — but if Stan leaves now, and can’t find the journal anywhere else in the valley, he knows he’ll have to revisit this place eventually. He doesn’t _ever_ want to revisit this unpleasant memory again, if he can avoid it.

Setting out to leave no stone unturned, he finds there are few stones on the hill to turn in the first place. There are few hiding places of any sort, nor any signs of recent digging. Stan suddenly regrets throwing out his metal detector all those years ago, and wonders if the other journals have enough brass in them to give a signal —

The hairs on the back of his neck stand up before he realizes why. He knows someone’s coming before he hears the snap of twigs or the hushed voices, the murmur of _“look at the footprints, he came this way.”_

They’re coming from the direction of his — _Ford’s_ house. They must’ve followed him — or as they believed it, followed _Ford_ out here for a _reason_.

“Who’s there?” Stan shouts, cringing as he hears how hoarse his voice is. His impression of Ford improves as he adds, “What brings you out here?”

“We could ask the same of you, Dr. Pines,” a deep voice booms as two figures in hooded red robes step into view, one more hesitantly than the other. They both wield identical, uncomfortably gun-shaped contraptions. “Still haven’t given up on your _project_, have you?”

If these cultists, or assassins, or whatever the _hell_ they are know anything about Ford, then Stan needs to know it too. He takes a measured risk.

“I have a lot of projects. You’ll have to be more specific —”

“Ya know what we mean, Stanford.” It’s the second robed figure who speaks up, the one who’d lagged behind his deep-voiced co-conspirator, and the Southern accent throws Stan for a loop. His words suggest some kind of threat, but his gun-toting arm hangs limp at his side. “I — I didn’t want to do this, I really_ didn’t_ — but you’re becomin’ a danger, Ford, a danger to yourself and to everyone. And we — we’re here to stop you.”

“Wait!” Stan holds up his hands, dropping his Ford impression. “You’ve got this all wrong! Ford’s not dangerous, he’s _in_ danger and I’m trying to —”

“Enough excuses!” the first figure barks, raising his gun. “IT IS UNSEEN!”

Blue light beams out of the contraption’s bulb, and Stan instinctively raises a hand to shield himself — but the light bends in midair, as if refracted by an invisible prism. It illuminates the clearing like a flash of lightning, but misses Stan by a mile.

“I told you to _wait_,” he whispers. He understands nothing about the bending of the light, yet somehow, could not be more certain that he alone had caused it.

“Ford?” the second figure asks, no longer sounding hesitant nor conflicted. There’s only one emotion in that voice, and it’s _fear_.

His companion, on the other hand, aims again without a word — and the light soars over Stan’s head as he falls to his knees, numb to the pain of the impact. Numb to everything except one thought, one single truth, easier to face than any sort of self-reflection on the power he held.

_They think I’m Ford. They tried to hurt Ford. They tried to hurt Ford. They tried to —_

He makes a fist with his right hand, and he sees the scene through a hundred new perspectives as sickly yellow eyes blink to life on every birch tree. He makes a fist with his left hand, and the forest comes alive.

The robed figures trip over gnarled roots, one of them even dropping his gun, but the trees continue to animate, trunks bending over and bare branches wrapping themselves around limbs. A wind whips through the grove as the cultists flail, begging as they make eye contact — not with the arboreal limbs ensnaring them, but with Stan’s body itself.

And Stan watches in both complete control, and complete disbelief of it all.

There’s a pressure against his skull, a dam about to burst after holding the flood of memories back for too long. There are leaks already, trickles of information and sparks of blue fire that chill him to his core, as images flash through his mind without coming from the birch trees, or even from his own lifetime.

_Ford’s not the dangerous one. I am. _

_Ford’s the one who’s in danger. _

_Because of me._

The birches loosen their grip on the cultists, who flee the second they can shake themselves free. Stan’s left alone again, staring himself down with his hundred yellow eyes, and he can see guilt in every one of them.

He rises to a standing position, roots winding around his boots and bark creeping up his mud-soaked pants. He can’t face the world, he can’t face Ford, he can’t face himself knowing what he’s capable of, knowing that he’s the worst of all the monsters lurking in the woods —

As the trees of the grove reshape their roots and the ground shakes from the strain, the dropped gun bounces towards Stan’s feet. 

_It is unseen,_ he remembers one of the figures shouting.

He picks it up, inputs _birch trees_, and holds it to his head as he closes as many of his eyes as he can. Fire burns away his memories, and a deluge of ink-black water rushes in to absorb the ashes and fill their place.

***

Fiddleford McGucket runs for dear life with Ivan hot on his heels, until they reach the museum and barricade themselves inside an empty room, bracing themselves for pursuit. When it doesn’t come, Fiddleford enters a name into the memory gun, starting over several times after his trembling fingers betray him.

“Just — just another monster to erase,” Ivan stammers, “with a more human name than most.”

Fiddleford finally gets the spelling right. Two flashes of light with the input screen reading _Stanford Pines_, and memories of the day’s encounter — and then some — go up in flames.

_It is unseen._

***

Stan is kneeling at the muddy base of an even muddier hill, surrounded by trees that look like they’re staring at him.

_Or maybe, eyes that only blink when I’m — never mind. That’s ridiculous._

On the ground in front of him is a strange kind of gun, with a lightbulb in place of the barrel. He thinks he’s glimpsed some robed, vaguely cult-looking types carrying these around in town before, so after staggering to his feet, he smashes the device beneath his boot.

He has a feeling he’s forgetting something important <strike>again</strike>, but he can’t be bothered to try and remember <strike>again</strike>. He can’t bear to think about it any longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (also on [tumblr!](https://anistarrose.tumblr.com/post/621855422463213568/some-sunny-day-bonus-chapter-3-seen-and-unseen))
> 
> This hill with the birch trees is the same one where Ford took a nap and first met Bill, so needless to say, Stan’s gut instinct about Ford not hiding any journals in a place like this was dead-on.
> 
> I have a lot more bonus content planned for this series, like the two-parter I alluded to in the earlier notes, but I’ve got no idea when any of that’s coming aside from a cautiously optimistic estimate of “later in 2020.” Once again, I’m so grateful for all the support you guys have given this fic from the beginning just over two years ago, to the “ending” exactly one year ago, all the way up through today :’)


End file.
